IMMIGRATION CRISIS
Impact of immigration crisis on travel industry
Introduction
The European border has been open for refugees and countries never applied strict restriction on immigrants before the crisis of 2015. Due to globalization, the process of migration has increased, and Europe has to face surge. People due to several reasons started moving from their homelands to Europe. The flow of these immigrants is a mix of extremely complex factors. Even majority of immigrants arriving Europe because of the security reasons, but as the crisis is increasing it has to turn out to be necessary for Europe to take serious measures (Banulescu-Bogdan & Fratzke, 2015). Therefore, it has become essential to shed the light on this topic and find out the ways Europe dealt with the crisis of immigration. To gain this objective, the paper has been separated into four segments. The first section describes the background of European immigration and the crisis. The second section elaborates the reaction of Europe to the crisis of immigration. The third section defines the importance of travel and tourism industry for Europe and in line with the fourth section describes the influence of the crisis on the travel and tourism industry in Europe.
Background and Europe immigration crisis
Immigration is the transfer of people from their homelands to another land in which they are not residents and come to get the citizenship for being resident or to settle there. People migrate from their home countries to other countries due to several reasons. These reasons can be social, economic, environmental, and political. For example, the reason can be a search of a new job (economic reason), for living a better quality of life (social), due to the war in the country (political), and due to natural disasters (environmental reason) (Robert, 2007).
Reasons for migration can be many that can be categorized as pull factor and push factor. Pull factor include potential opportunities for emplacement, better availability of services, safe atmosphere, low rate of crime, and fertile land. People migrate because they find a better quality of life in other country, less risk of natural disasters, greater affluence or wealth, and political security. However, the push side factors include unemployment, poor security, and safety, high rate of crime, flooding, war, crop failure, and lack of services. All these factors force people to migrate from one to another country (BBC, 2014).
Migration is not a new process people migrate all the time. After the formation of European Union, it became easier for people to migrate between regions, not just from the diverse countries of European Union but from outside the EU as well.
After the world wars, Commonwealth countries have been the major source of immigration for the Europe. European government after the world wars encouraged the immigration by providing immigrants jobs in steelworks, health organizations, transportations industry, and textile sectors. In the 1970s, the United Kingdom tightens the control over migration. In different countries, the law of immigration is different and changes over time (BBC, 2014).
In 1945, immigration from Turkey to Germany was high, in 1947, from Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka to the United Kingdom, and in 1950 to 1960, North America to France, Italy, and Spain. However, during 1950 to 1960, the United Kingdom was the key destination for West Indies to migrate. In 1973, multiple Ugandan migrated to the United Kingdom (BBC, 2014).
Conflicts in Syria, ongoing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, poverty in Kosovo, and abuses in Eritrea were the major reasons that encouraged people to look elsewhere for living their lives and due to which the number of immigrants increased in Europe. The huge amount of immigrants reached in Europe through the sea and some arrived through making their ways on land. According to the UNCHR, approximately 135711 people since the start of 2016 are reaching Europe through the sea. The top ten origins from which people are applying for the European asylum include Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Albania, Pakistan, Eritrea, Nigeria, Iran and Ukraine (BBC News, 2016a) (See Appendix).
In 2015, Germany received the highest number of application for asylums with more than 476000, but according to the German officials, approximately one million people have entered Germany. With 177130 applications, Hungary has become the second largest place for facilitating immigrants. In 2015, the total asylums claims in Europe had reached to 1321560 (See Appendix).
It has been realized that the tension in the European Union rose as some of the countries in Europe was bearing the disproportionate burden. Specifically, the major affected areas from immigration have been Germany, Sweden, Italy, Greece, and Hungary (Keren, 2015). However, as an outcome of the immigration crisis, they asked the European partners to demonstrate some unity and share the burden, but here the big divide was observed between countries in term of bearing the burden of immigrants (BBC News, 2016b).
The European Union for dealing with the crisis of immigrants decided that the burden will be tolerated by relocating the refugees EU-wide. However, on the immediate basis, the plan was applied only in Germany and Italy. However, when Hungary was asked to apply the plan the government of the country refused the implementation and preferred to receive more people for Germany and Italy by considering it as an element of the relocation scheme (BBC News, 2016b; Jahn, 2015).
Under the vulnerable scheme of person relocation, the United Kingdom resettled the 1000 refugees of Syria in 2015 (Long, 2015). Even the prime minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron agreed to accept the burden of up to 20000 Syrian refugees more than the next five years. The European Union dealt with the crisis by setting the quotas for each European country, for details see Appendix (BBC News, 2016b; Jahn, 2015).
The European Union with the aim of dealing the immigration crisis provided the emergency support of € 700 million to deal with the crisis. The European Union for sharing the burden of Turkey in this regard opened its border to Turkish residents and offered them visa free travel in the passport free zone of Schengen (BBC News, 2016b).
A big divide between Europe has been observed in term of handling the immigration crisis. However, the European Union for dealing with immigration crisis preferred to safeguard the free movement of refugees or immigrants under the Schengen scheme. Most of the countries like France consider the Schengen scheme as an open door scheme to criminals because the countries can re-impose border control for only ten days if any security concerns arise. If the countries see any persistent security issue only in that condition, the control can be maintained for 20 days and maximum for three months (BBC News 2016c).
Austria, Holland, and Hungary through imposing the border checks have closed their door to the free movement of an immigrant. Austria has sent thousands of soldiers to the border in the result of stepping up the controls; Poland, France, and Belgium have also decided to reintroduce the border control with the aim of dealing the surge of migrants. In short, it can be said that finally the Europe due to the ongoing surge of migrants has decided lock down its borders on a temporary basis as the states of the Europe are saying no to more migrants and are slamming their borders (Stevens, 2015; BBC News, 2015d).
They are introducing more policies for cutting the entrant of immigrants in their countries (Faiola, 2016). Sweden is also applying border controls for preventing the immigrant in entering the nation and not allowing them to stay in the country illegally; the country is seeking the policies of a sharp reversal of its open door policy (Crouch, 2015; Hartley-Brewer, 2015). The European leaders are rather forcing European countries to bear the burden encouraged them to take voluntary starts (BBC News, 2016b).
Importance of travel and tourism industry to Europe
The increasing numbers of immigrants will influence the economies of European countries by affecting the diverse sectors such as public finance sector, labor market, and health care system. According to the OECD international outlook report of immigration, migrants are less likely to contribute to the welfare of the countries because of their limited access to the labor market. In health care sector, it was assumed that the claims of migrants will increase the waiting time, but that was not true, but migrants contributed in reducing the waiting time. Despite seeing the negative impact, it has been determined that immigrants either have a positive impact on the European economies or have no impact on them. Therefore, it has become pivotal to realize the impact of immigration crisis on travel industry of Europe (Huttl & Leandro, 2015).
Before observing the impact of the European crisis on travel and tourism industry in Europe, it is necessary to know that why travel and tourism industry is emphasized. It has been determined that the value of travel and tourism industry and the industry is itself is growing constantly. According to the Oxford economic estimates and research report of WTTC, in 2014, the travel and tourism industry supported the gross domestic products (GDP) BY € 5.7 trillion, which account 9.8 percent of the global gross domestic products (GDP). Even the industry contributed in generating 280 million jobs at the global level (Oxford Economics for the World Travel & Tourism Council, 2015).
If the European travel and tourism industry is considered, then it is an important aspect of the global image. In 2014, the European travel and tourism alone supported the gross domestic products (GDP) of Europe up to 9.2 to 9.3 percent and 28 percent of the global travel and tourism gross domestic products that make €1.6 trillion (Oxford Economics for the World Travel & Tourism Council, 2015). It is expected that for the Europe the figure will exceed 10.4 percent by the 2050 (SMAL AFTA, 2016).
The industry is the major source of income for Europe (Athanasopoulou, 2013). According to the forecasts, the industry will grow at the rate of 2.8 percent on a yearly basis for next ten years and this growth rate is expected to outperform the world’s economy that is expected to grow by 1.9 percent over the next decade on an annual basis. The report of world travel and tourism council (WTTC) depicts that in 2014, the industry lump sum contribution was € 1.8 trillion, and the industry generated 1.2 times more than automotive production, 1.4 times in excess of chemical production, 1.8 times above than banking sector, and 2.6 times in surplus of mining sector. The sector is also providing more employment in Europe as compared to any other major sectors. For example, the sectors is generating 1.1 time excess jobs as compared to financial service sectors, 1.5 times over than banking industry, 2.5 times in excess of automobile manufacturing industry, 2.5 times higher than chemical production sectors, and 2.6 above as compared to the mining sector (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2015).
The analysis revealed that the travel and tourism sector has immense importance for Europe, as it is the major source of economic growth. The sector is just not contributing primarily in the gross domestic products (GDP) of Europe, but also generating more jobs as compared to any other industry. Therefore, after realizing the importance of travel and tourism industry in Europe, it has become more critical to determine the impact of European immigration crisis on the industry.
Influence of immigration crisis on the travel and tourism industry of Europe
The crisis of refugees has consumed Europe; several crisis questions have occurred in the result of the crisis. Tourism has been amongst the major source of income in many European countries and governments are now struggling to manage the refugee crisis (Sachs, 2015).
It has been analyzed that the crisis of immigration has exploded. Migrants are coming to Europe from diverse areas; they are seeking for asylums in Europe with the aim of escaping their homelands. This situation has raised significant challenges and posed considerable problems for European countries. Many countries of Europe are tightening up their laws to cope up with the immigrant crisis. In result of this recent development that has been proposed for preventing the immigrants from entering in Europe, many holiday makers had to suffer as people are deciding not to choose Europe as a place of their vacation and canceled their vacations. Most of the countries in Europe are not able to host their guests because of the crisis; they do not have any choice except to let their travel and tourism industry suffer because they are busy with dealing the immigration crisis (Osei-Botah, 2015).
However, it has been examined that all countries in the Europe do not have to do through the negative effects of the immigration crisis because Greece is also in the middle of the crisis, but still able to bring the tourist. Despite the high number of immigrants entering in the Greece, the country is even hosting approximately 15 percent more travelers from Scandinavia (the term is used commonly in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark) as compared to the year of 2014 (Osei-Botah, 2015). Even it was predicted that the country was expected to host approximately 250000 Scandinavians in last summer. There was no crisis in the travel and tourism industry in the Greece due to immigration crisis and even the country in 2015 has been the most favorite destination for its Spain, Turkey, and Dutch customers. On the other hand, as 2016 started, the uncontrolled flow of migrants put immense pressure on Greece travel and tourism industry that it became a threat to the economy of the country. The major tangible effects can be observed from the cancellation of the reservation of hotel, reduction in the cruise companies scheduled routes, and cancellation of flight bookings (Davis, 2016; Kousouunis, 2016).
In France, the condition was also same, as in 2015, the country was also able to attract tourism, but as the year of 2016 started the travel and tourism, industry of France started suffering from the immigrant crisis (Davis, 2016). Even in Britain, it has been observed that in 2015, the largest canal boats were hired with increased rate of 44 percent as compared to 2014 that depicts the increased travel in Britain. A holiday firm of upmarket camping reported that the bookings of the company have been more than doubling in 2015 as compared to 2014. Even according to the Euromonitor International, in 2014, the domestic trips of tourists were 132 million in Britain and these trips were expected to grow in 2015 again (Coldwell et al., 2015). However, the crisis started showing its influence in Britain in 2016 as well, as the country as compared to last year is facing 20 percent decline in the overall numbers of tourists (Davis, 2016).
The analysis revealed that the migrant crisis started showing the negative impact on the travel and tourism industry of many European countries at their beginning. On the other hand, in 2015, the crisis was unable to show the impact on travel and tourism industry of some other European countries. However, as 2016 started the impact became visible, and the travel and tourism industry of the Europe started depicting the negative impact of the surge of refugees in Europe. The economies of European countries started showing pessimistic results that forced Europe to restrict the refugees in entering Europe and put border checks to stop migrants in entering Europe.
Conclusion
It has been realized that the immigration crisis occurred in 2015; Europe opened its doors to immigrants and adapted a quota policy to share the responsibility of immigrants. According to the quota, countries were liable to handle the specific amount of immigrants, but later the situation became worse as in the result of opening the doors more immigrants started coming to Europe. It became difficult for Europe to manage such immense surge. The crisis also started affecting the travel and tourism industry negatively, which is the major source of income in Europe. Therefore, countries started implementing border checks to deal with the situation and decided to close the door through implementing diverse measures.
List of References
Aisch, G., Almukhtar, S., Rebecca Lai, K. K., Park, H., & White, J. (2015). Countries Under the Most Strain in the European Migration Crisis. The New York Times. Available from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/28/world/europe/countries-under-strain-from-european-migration-crisis.html?_r=0 [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Athanasopoulou, A. (2013). Tourism as a driver of economic growth and development in the EU‑27 and ASEAN regions. EU Center in Singapore. Available from http://www.eucentre.sg/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/EUCResearchBrief_TourismEU27ASEAN.pdf [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Banulescu-Bogdan, N., & Fratzke, S. (2015). Europe’s Migration Crisis in Context: Why Now and What Next?. Migration Information Source. Available from http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/europe-migration-crisis-context-why-now-and-what-next [Accessed 8 April 2016]
BBC News. (2015d). Migrant crisis: France Valls warns on refugee numbers. Available from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34904931 [Accessed 8 April 2016]
BBC News. (2016a). Migrant crisis: Migration to Europe explained in seven charts. Available from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911 [Accessed 8 April 2016]
BBC News. (2016b). How is the migrant crisis dividing EU countries?. Available from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34278886 [Accessed 8 April 2016]
BBC News. (2016c). Schengen: Controversial EU free movement deal explained. Available from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13194723 [Accessed 8 April 2016]
BBC. (2014). Why do people migrate?. Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/migration/migration_trends_rev2.shtml [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Coldwell, W., Osborne, L., Crouch, D.,& Walker. (2015). How the Mediterranean crises are affecting tourists' summer plans. The Guardian. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/mediterranean-crises-tunisia-greece-france-italty-migration-tourists-summer-holiday [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Crouch, D. (2015). Sweden slams shut its open-door policy towards refugees. The Guardian. Available from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/24/sweden-asylum-seekers-refugees-policy-reversal [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Davis, A. (2016). Calais demands action as migrant crisis hits economy. France24. Available from http://www.france24.com/en/20160307-calais-forgotten-victim-migrant-crisis-tourism-france-refugees-jungle [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Faiola, A. (2016). More European nations are barring their doors to migrants. The Washington Post. Available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/european-nations-bar-the-doors-to-more-migrants/2016/01/21/cab2ff50-c04e-11e5-98c8-7fab78677d51_story.html [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Financial Times. (2016). Europe’s Migration Crisis. Available from http://www.ft.com/intl/migration [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Hartley-Brewer, J. (2015). If even Sweden is closing its borders to refugees, this really could be the end for mass immigration. The Telegraph. Available from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/11990885/If-even-Sweden-is-closing-its-borders-to-refugees-this-really-could-be-the-end-for-mass-immigration.html [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Huttl, P., & Leandro, A. (2015). How will refugees affect European economies?. Bruegel.Org. Available from http://bruegel.org/2015/10/how-will-refugees-affect-european-economies/ [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Jahn, G. (2015). Merkel Says All EU Partners Should Share Burden of Migrant Influx. Haaretz. Available from http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/1.674888 [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Keren, S. (2015). Europe's Migration Crisis: "Not Giving Us Like in Germany. Gatestone Institute. Available from http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6473/europe-migration-crisis-welfare [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Kousouunis, S. (2016). Migration crisis seen damaging tourism. Available from http://www.ekathimerini.com/206409/article/ekathimerini/business/migration-crisis-seen-damaging-tourism [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Long, F. (2015). Navigating the migrant crisis. Travel Weekly. Available from http://www.travelweekly.com/Europe-Travel/Insights/Navigating-the-migrant-crisis [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Osei-Botah, J. (2015). The effects of the migrant crisis on tourism and travel. Daily News. Available from http://www.dailynewsservice.co.uk/the-effects-of-the-migrant-crisis-on-tourism-and-travel/ [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Oxford Economics for the World Travel & Tourism Council. (2015). European travel and tourism: where are the greatest, current, and future investments needs?. Available from https://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/policy%20research/european%20investment%20report%20-%20web.pdf [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Robert, A. R. (2007). Battered Women and Their Families: Intervention Strategies and Treatment USA: Springer Publishing Company.
Sachs, A. (2015). As refugees stream into Europe, tourists face their own set of questions. The Washington Post. Available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/as-refugees-stream-into-europe-tourists-face-their-own-set-of-questions/2015/10/08/31dde884-616d-11e5-8e9e-dce8a2a2a679_story.html [Accessed 8 April 2016]
SMAL AFTA. (2016). Travel and tourism sector unites behind Tourism for Growth and Jobs Manifesto. Available from http://www.smal.fi/news/Travel-and-tourism-sector-unites-behind-Tourism-for-Growth-and-Jobs-Manifesto-/yo5idzgp/e216defe-0c15-4b10-a456-b4c1325e2292 [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Stevens, J. (2015). Europe slams migrant door: Hungary, Austria and Holland shut borders as Germany imposes controls - saying it can't cope. Daily Mail. Available from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3234524/Europe-slams-migrant-door-Hungary-Austria-Slovakia-Holland-shut-borders-Germany-imposes-controls-saying-t-cope.html [Accessed 8 April 2016]
World Travel & Tourism Council. (2015).Travel & Tourism contributes more to the European GDP than automotive manufacturing, chemicals manufacturing, banking, agriculture, and the mining sector. Available from http://www.wttc.org/press-room/press-releases/press-releases/2015/travel-and-tourism-contributes-more-to-the-european-gdp/ [Accessed 8 April 2016]
Appendix
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911
source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911
